A sea of red flags fly above students and other protesters during a pro-reform demonstration on May 4, 1989 in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

Associated Press

On June 4, China will mark the 25thanniversary of the violent suppression of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square – an event that shocked TV audiences around the world, made global pariahs of the country’s top leaders and set a precedent for decades of iron-fisted reactions to political dissent.

A month prior to the crackdown, the protests took a dramatic turn as non-students also began marching against the government in large numbers for the first time. The most notable new participants were hundreds of journalists, including reporters from the Communist Party flagship newspaperPeople’s Daily, which had been excoriated by students the previous month for labelling the protest movement a conspiracy intended to plunge the country into “chaos.”

The march consciously evoked the May Fourth Movement, a political and cultural movement catalyzed by student demonstrations in Beijing on May 4, 1919 in response to China’s ceding of territory in Shandong Province to Japan as part of the Treaty of Versailles.The movement, whose leaders included two founders of the Communist Party, rejected traditional values and argued China needed to follow the West in embracing science and democracy.

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A day after the May 4, 1989 march, the Wall Street Journalpublished this story:

Continuing Defiance by Students Altering Political Debate in China

Adi Ignatius

Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

5 May 1989

BEIJING — Continued defiance by students seems to have altered, perhaps permanently, the terms of political debate in China.

Despite official warnings, the students staged another anti-government march here yesterday and for the first time were joined by a non-student group. Several hundred journalists, most of whom work for China’s tightly controlled official media, waved banners and shouted slogans criticizing government press policies and calling for reinstatement of the editor of a liberal Shanghai newspaper.

In response to the three-week-old protest movement, the government is experimenting with Soviet-style openness. Yuan Mu, a senior State Council official, met with student leaders Saturday in an unprecedented televised “dialogue.” Now that the public has witnessed open expressions of discontent other groups are likely to demand the same, analysts say.

The student rally yesterday, timed to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the so-called May Fourth Movement — a turning point in modern Chinese history when intellectuals joined to demonstrate against foreign domination — marked another blow to the government’s already-low prestige. For a week, authorities scrambled to avoid such a confrontation by alternating threats of a crackdown with partial concessions to student demands. But the students were undaunted and during the march continued to harangue Deng Xiaoping, China’s senior leader, once considered an ally of progressive causes.

After the rally, Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang adopted a more conciliatory tone. “The reasonable demands from the students should be met through democratic and legal means,” he said in a speech to governors of the Asian Development Bank meeting in Beijing. “The students’ demands for correcting errors so as to march forward coincide with those of the party and government.”

About 40,000 students, plus tens of thousands of supporters, marched all day through the capital. The rally was only about half the size of an anti-government march last week, but included representatives from many more schools, including several universities outside Beijing. There also were reports of marches in Shanghai and several other cities.

In Beijing, the marchers ended up at Tiananmen Square, the symbolic center of China where Mao Tse-tung proclaimed the founding of Communist China in 1949. Speakers praised the students’ “victory” and urged the government to move faster toward democracy.

Student leaders announced plans to return to classes today, ending a two-week boycott. They also said they would continue efforts to meet with government and Party leaders. To some, the rally seemed to be the last big expression of discontent, but student politics are expected to remain feistier and more independent.

The student movement has struck a popular chord, as evidenced by the thousands of cheering onlookers who lined the streets yesterday and during the larger march last week. From inside the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, where research often is forced to fit the party line, scholars waved red banners and cheered the students. “We understand,” read a placard held outside one window.

The march by journalists was the first major expression of solidarity with the students’ demands. Journalists from 30 organizations participated, including the People’s Daily, the official party newspaper, and Xinhua, the official press service.

“We are protesting because we are tired of telling lies,” said Lin Ruihua, a reporter for a culture magazine. He said the journalists were opposed to the state’s decision last week to fire Qin Benli, editor of the World Economic Herald, a weekly Shanghai newspaper that has been at the forefront of reporting about China’s economic and political reforms.

The government put up little resistance to the march despite its warnings. Police lines quickly yielded to student supporters who pushed officers aside.

The students’ demands remained vague. But their actions provided insights into the kind of democratic systems they seem to be trying to achieve.

On the eve of the march, representatives from 47 universities met at Beijing Normal College to decide on a strategy. They took a vote. Of the student leaders, 40 supported a protest rally, five opposed it, while two abstained. But even the schools whose representatives didn’t support the rally took part in it. “We are marching because in a democratic system, the majority rules,” said a student leader of Beijing University, which had voted no.

It’s too early to tell if the movement will strengthen liberal leaders or conservatives. There isn’t any indication the unrest will lead to high-level resignations. One casualty, though, could be China’s economic restructuring. Fears that student unrest could provoke broader discontent could limit the state’s effort to impose austerity measures.

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